Popular Topics

Intelligent Building Leader Dave Clute Joins ESD

ESD is excited to announce a major hire: Dave Clute, a leader in the field of Intelligent Buildings who has worked on hundreds of projects in the area during the 21st century, has joined the company, bolstering its leadership in the burgeoning Intelligent Building market.

“I’m super excited about ESD’s potential and by its growth in Intelligent Buildings,” said Clute, who previously worked at Zurich Insurance Group and Cisco Systems among other well-known firms. “The idea of Intelligent Buildings has been around since the 1980s, but it’s taken off in the last five years because of the ubiquity of Wi-Fi, the Internet of Things, secure networks and the availability of cost-effective building sensors. We’re literally at the threshold of the long-term potential of Intelligent Buildings.”

Most recently, Clute was focused on the Intelligent Buildings program at Zurich. He worked on one of the largest build-to-suit projects in the United States, Zurich’s new North America headquarters outside of Chicago, a showcase for the power and potential of Intelligent Buildings. ESD provided the roadmap and implementation for the Intelligent Building platform at the nearly 800,000-square-foot campus.

“Dave is an Intelligent Building pioneer,” said Kurt Karnatz, ESD President. “Having worked with him on a number of projects, his leadership and passion for Intelligent Buildings are truly impressive. Having Dave as a partner at ESD adds another facet of expertise that helps us bring Intelligent Building solutions to our clients and helps set us apart from our competition.”

Clute’s expertise includes writing the book, “Zurich Intelligent Buildings Design & Implementation Guidelines” (already in its second edition). It explains how to design, build and operate truly intelligent buildings.

“I’m so thankful to Kurt Karnatz, Rob Knight and others at ESD for their help on it. I couldn’t have done that book on my own,” Clute said.

As the global Head of Workplace Technology at Zurich, Clute was responsible for the development, implementation and operation of workplace technology systems supporting 55,000 Zurich employees in 42 countries. During a decade at Cisco Systems, he helped launch the Cisco Connected Real Estate program, which improves energy management, enhances security and reduces operational costs for buildings, among other benefits. He has also pioneered the use of Trimble’s 3D SketchUp program to create sustainable real-estate developments in emerging global markets rather than implementing any traditional 2D construction documents, a success story of how to design, build and operate sustainable architecture in the modern age. He has been a speaker, presenter and panelist at technology conferences such as IBCon, CoreTech and CoreNet Global. Dave is also one of the original founders of OSCRE, the Open Standards Consortium for Real Estate.